Stone House Asylum, Dartford â€“ Aug 2010

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Stone House Hospital, formerly the City of London Lunatic Asylum, was a hospital and former mental illness treatment facility in Stone, near Dartford, Kent, in the United Kingdom. As of November, 2007 the hospital has been closed, and bids have been taken for its redevelopment to house luxury flats.

Stone House was originally constructed between 1862 and 1866 at the behest of the London Commissioners in Lunacy to provide for pauper lunatics from the London area at a cost of Â£65,000. The buildings were designed in a Gothic brick style by James Bunstone Bunning, and the facility accommodated 220 patients. The asylum grounds, at first 33 acres (130,000 m2) and later expanded to 140 acres (0.57 km2), included a working farm. Additions to the original buildings were made in 1874, 1878, and 1885, including an expanded female wing and a separate hospital building for patients with infectious diseases.

First post on here guys so hope it works!
Tipped off by a friend Matt about this house I decided to go one cold winter morning to see it for myself on a solo run. Entry into the house a tricky assault course through the overgrown garden which hasn't been tended to for decades by the look of it.
A very peculiar house this in that its location is in a sleepy little village of pure chocolate box quintessential Englishness. A more desirable a place to live would be hard to find to get away form the chaos of city life. Clean air and peaceful surroundings, the parish church all capture the imagination yet this house contradicts everything around it.

Somewhat derelict with overgrown gardens, a rusty old iron gate with a disappearing path leading up to the house don't fit in to its surroundings. What the local residents make of it I'd love to know. Why it has been left to fall into such a bad state is anyone's guess. I would imagine the house itself is worth a lot of money having 4 bedrooms and a lot of land regardless of the location which I'd imagine to be quite expensive to live in. Doesn't anyone own the house and if so why have they just left it for so long to fall into disrepair? It's not really secured either so it doesn't seem like anyone ever goes to the house to check on it. Very strange.

From the decor and the possessions still left inside I'd date it becoming abandoned around the mid 1980s. Piles and piles of newspapers - mainly The Daily Mail & The Telegraph - clutter each room. Using a tripod proved tricky as the floors were covered in stacks of old newspapers. The most recent date I could find without checking all the hundreds left around was 1984. Maybe one of the former residents was a hoarder of newspapers? In the entire house there were literally thousands left behind no room escaped their occupancy.

There were few clues as to who lived here, just names on envelopes which obviously won't be revealed. What their occupations were I have no idea. Downstairs were two reception rooms littered with vintage possessions including several televisions a typewriter a Bakelite rotary telephone amongst other things. The most interesting items were the framed portraits of children. Who were they and where are they now? Piles of old photographs and personal documents were left behind on the writing/study desk seemingly unwanted by anyone.

A double split staircase leads to the upstairs bedrooms. Two were empty so weren't photographed, the other two still had everything left behind including clothes and yet more newspapers.

I always think that every abandoned home must have an owner somewhere. It seems this one - despite its obvious appeal to potential buyers - seems to be truly abandoned with no one left to have any interest in it.

My name is Faith- I have a website/blog for my adventures around the world. Lots of urbex, Mad Max/postapocalyptic festivals like Wasteland Weekend, ghost towns, legends etc. I'm based in England but travel all over the place and I'm always looking to team up with fellow explorers.

Daresbury Hall is a former Georgian country house in the village of Daresbury, Cheshire, England.
It was built in 1759 for George Heron. the hall descended in the Heron family until 1850, when it became the property of Samuel Beckett Chadwick. By 1892 it had been acquired by Sir Gilbert Greenall, later Baron Daresbury.

During the Second World War, it was used as a military hospital and also by a charity, now known as Scope. It became semi-derelict after being bought by a millionaire who died before restoration could take place.
In April 2015, a huge cannabis farm containing six hundred plants with an estimated street value of 750.000 was discovered at the estate.

In 2016 there were plans to partly demolish and convert the house but in June of that year
the empty building was badly damaged by fire.

Unfortunately, during our visit, we were asked to leave the sight by security via a speaker system on the estate. We did, however, stick around for 20 mins until it went off again, to be honest,
I'm not sure whether the system is automated and linked to motion sensors.

There is a lot of cameras on the sight too as shown the last pic.
Any way we couldn't enter the property as it is completely sealed now with boards on all windows and doors etc except for a stable and a few dilapidated sheds.

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Oblivion State exists as an online forum to allow like minded individuals to share their experiences of Urban Exploration. We do not condone breaking and entering or other criminal activity and advise all members to read the FAQ articles about the forum and urban exploring in general. All posts are the responsibility of the original poster and all images remain copyright to the original photographer